


wish you were her/e

by bibliophilo



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 18:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5344226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliophilo/pseuds/bibliophilo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's half a tournament, multiple dimension jumps and one meeting with Yuuri (one meeting too many) before he finds her again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wish you were her/e

**Author's Note:**

> rush-written directly after 77, will probably tweak when we learn more about rin/ruri/yuri oops

She isn't Yuzu.

It's an easy mistake to make – same jaw, same cheekbones, same wide eyes; but the jaw is set with a grim conviction fiercer than Yuzu's own brand of determination, the cheeks are rounder and fuller with as yet unshed baby fat, and her eyes–

Green, some shades darker and duller than his own, nothing like the deep blue he used to drown in. He hadn't seen them up close the first time, only noticed her face and clothing and assumed all the rest of her must be the usual specs.

 _Stupid._  He'd  _known_  beforehand that his target had the same face as Yuzu's. A fleeting mistake, easy to make, but a mistake nonetheless, and in that moment of indecision she'd managed to take him by surprise, slipping right through his fingers along with that wretched Kurosaki.

Sora grimaces at the memory of his meeting with the Professor's general.  _Personal investment_ , he'd said,  _compromising the mission_  and for what? Some girl he'd met on a simple solo recon mission. Teaching a Standard native Fusion summoning –  _proper_  Fusion, not the cheap, faded knock-off people like Kotsu Masumi used – had never been in the manual. Maybe he'd blended in a little  _too_  well; he really is too nice for his own good.

Yuuri had been sarcastic at him for half an hour before moving on to irony.

"Consider yourself lucky you were only on recon at the time," he'd said, reptilian grin wide and sharp (at least, Sora had thought it was a grin, in that his teeth had been bared). " _Emotional involvement with the target_  wouldn't look good on your record," and Sora had pretended not to know what he meant.

* * *

She isn't Yuzu, either.

This one has shorter hair framing her familiar face in smooth curls, her golden eyes not unlike Kurosaki Shun's, but by all accounts  _she_  isn't Kurosaki's sister. Not that he's really had much opportunity to observe her up close; he only meets her once, when Yuuri takes him to meet the incomplete collection.

She doesn't say a word, only flicks a glance at them with tired eyes and casts her eyes down again, but although most of her wary attention (such as it is) is fixed on her abductor Sora fancies he glimpses, beneath the layers of fear and exhaustion, a cold, metallic fury.

Not so different, after all.

* * *

The last captive (or first, depending on your perspective) isn't Yuzu, but she  _is_ , as Yuuri puts it, the face that launched an interdimensional war. The same face as all the others, maybe a little thinner with stress, pink eyes narrowed and nose wrinkled into an implacable scowl all throughout the duration of their visit.

The temper's the same, too, if a trifle more restrained. He stifles an involuntary grin – he can't be certain if she shares Yuzu's sharp tongue and skill with a paper fan, but Kurosaki's sister does have her big brother's unflinching, blazing glare if not the colour of his eyes, for all the good it does her now.

She has nothing to say to them either, no offering but hate, which clearly amuses Yuuri no end. Not the cold shoulder of the Synchro girl, but a furious, burning silence as she glares daggers at them both, as if only self-preservation is keeping down an entire womanful of rage.

It hits Sora, with something of a pang, that not once in all the time he's known her has he ever seen Yuzu with her hair loose.

* * *

He carries her limp, unresisting body away from the crash site, ignoring the sting of shrapnel and glass shards slicing into his flesh from where they're embedded in hers. He wonders if this is how it would look if Yuuri had been the one to find her, if he would cradle her in his arms like a newlywed bride or simply heft her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

She's still unconscious from the impact when they arrive at the abandoned shack he's appropriated as a temporary hideout. It's something to be grateful for; she doesn't feel a thing as he swabs her wounds and stitches the nastier gashes with what little supplies he has, although there's nothing he can do for her internal injuries. Ugly bruises are already mottling her fair skin like ripe plums, clearly visible through the rips in her scorched riding suit.

He wishes she would wake now. A chance to explain himself, that's all he needs, he may not regret the attack on Heartland and the fall of an entire city's innocent population but he's not a  _bad guy_ , and she'd understand that if she'd only  _listen_.

He hopes she never wakes again. He still has to carry out his mission for the Professor, and for all that her heart is wide enough to encompass all four dimensions he can't be certain she'll ever forgive him for what he's done and what he has to do.

Yuuri wouldn't have stitched her up, he assures himself. Yuuri wouldn't have cared that she was hurt, and if  _he_  cares, very much so, he can't be as bad as all that, can he?

It's something to keep in mind for when she wakes up, at any rate.

He wonders, not for the first time, just what the Professor wants with all these girls who share a face, and why he doesn't seem to be interested in the boys who share the same. Perhaps having one of Yuuri is more than enough, he supposes, although Yuuya isn't anything like–

_Yuuya._

If he knows anything about his friend, he'll be fretting himself sick and in no fit state to duel when the call comes. Sora doesn't get told much more than Yuuya, now that he thinks about it, but he's a soldier, trained and poised to obey orders unflinchingly and without question, and Yuuya is… not.

He arranges his favourite disciple's limbs in a more comfortable position on the bare mattress – taking care not to jostle any potentially broken bones – and picks up her battered helmet, lingering in the doorframe a moment to cast a backward glance at her recumbent figure before shutting the door behind him.

There's something he has to do first.


End file.
